Relying on a woman's intuition, I knew for sure that Xuedaire must have fallen in love with that gloomy and cold man in the hot spring.
Sometimes, love is just so inexplicable. After all, that man seemed so gloomy and icy, and one could tell at a glance that he was by no means a kind person.
A few days later, the man named Aarond resumed his previous life. He often meditated, occasionally sucked the blood of female elves, and seldom spoke.
I was still the same as before. To relieve boredom, I told him stories. On this day, I told the famous story of "Replacing the Crown Prince with a Civet Cat". I told the story with great enthusiasm, spittle flying everywhere, and kept gesturing with my hands: "In the end, Lord Bao finally helped the mother and son recognize each other."
He snorted coldly through his nose, seeming to be completely dismissive, and his eyes were full of contempt for me.
I also gave him a contemptuous look in return: "Not believing in miracles is just because one's vision is too narrow."
"What is a miracle?" He suddenly asked me in return.
"A miracle," I scratched my head and thought for a moment before answering, "refers to something that many elves think is impossible but eventually happens. For example, if the sun here always rises in the south, but one day it suddenly rises in the east, that's a miracle."
He was stunned for a moment, and then a faint smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
This was the first time I saw him smile, and I found it extremely rare. "Well, your eyes don't look so scary when you smile."
He immediately stopped smiling, and his face regained its previous coldness and stiffness. I burst out laughing.
To my own surprise, since then, the relationship between him and me had obviously improved. We could occasionally exchange a few words.
"How long do you plan to live in the hot spring?" I asked. "Where is your home?"
He was silent for a long time. So long that I thought he wouldn't answer me when suddenly I heard him say: "As long as I can stay here."
"Don't you miss your home?"
"I don't have a home."
"You must have a home. Do you want to send a letter to your family? You've lived here for so long. They must miss you very much."
He turned his face away and ignored me again.
That night, I knew he didn't sleep all night. He swam in the hot spring all night long. The gentle sound of the water disturbed my sweet dreams. I sat up halfway on the hammock and, through the gaps in the layers of leaves and by the dim firelight, saw the transparent water splashing around in the hot spring.
Gradually, I leaned back on the hammock, put my ear towards the direction of the ground, listened to the rhythmic sound of the water, and fell asleep again while the hammock was gently swaying.
Near dawn, he woke me up.
When I woke up from my dream, the first thing I looked up at was the tall and wide loess "roof", and then I saw him standing in front of the hammock.
Let me add an explanation here. This is an indoor hot spring pool. After passing through the door of the passage in the hot spring room, it's like coming to a huge cave. Torches are burning all year round in the cave, making it unusually bright. In the middle of the cave is that huge hot spring pool, and beside the hot spring pool is a small forest.
I rubbed my sleepy eyes and looked up at him. For the first time, I realized that he was so tall, at least two meters tall.
"What's the matter?" I asked after rubbing my eyes.
He put a piece of emerald that shone with a strange green color into my hand: "I want you to give this to someone."
"Who?"
"This person often comes to Adona's underground palace to hire prostitutes. Sometimes she hires male prostitutes, and sometimes female ones. Her name is Pisnayuoni. She is the matriarch of the Pisna family and also one of the top noblewomen in the Aslan Kingdom. You just need to give this emerald to her."
"Oh." I was startled when I heard that there was such a noblewoman. After thinking for a while, I took the emerald and immediately felt a chill in my hand.
"You can refuse," he suddenly said, his eyes as gloomy as usual.
"It doesn't matter," I said. "It's rare for you to ask for help. It's just a piece of cake for me."
A half-smile appeared on his face. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. He seemed to want to say something but finally didn't say anything.
"But since I'm helping you," I suddenly thought of something and said, "can you answer me a question? Consider it as repaying my favor."
"Ask." He answered very readily.
"How old are you?"
He was stunned for a moment. Obviously, he didn't expect that I would ask this question. After hesitating for a while, he replied: "Fifteen."
"Ah!" I jumped down from the hammock in surprise. I had been sitting on it talking to him before. "I thought you were in your twenties. Are people here all precocious?"
He turned around and ignored me. I hopped around behind him and gestured with my hands to see how much taller he was than me.
I'm thirteen and he's fifteen. In our original world, we're just two kids. In our country, he just graduated from junior high school, and I'm in the first year of junior high school.